HEMOCHROMATOSIS

Abstract
In his monograph on hemochromatosis (1935) Sheldon1accepted from the literature 311 cases of the disease. The incidence of hemochromatosis found at necropsy has been reported by Rowen and Mallory2as 0.05 per cent in a series of 6,500 autopsies. Blanton and Healy3reported finding the condition at 0.08 per cent of 5,000 autopsies at Bellevue Hospital. The postmortem incidence reported from other sources ranged between 0.001 and 0.4 per cent. The diagnosis of the disease is made more often at autopsy than clinically, owing to the fact that pigmentation has been the factor which suggested the diagnosis. That cutaneous pigmentation is not an essential criterion for the diagnosis of hemochromatosis is well known. The four cardinal signs of the disease occur, according to Sheldon, in the following order: (1) enlargement of the liver (92 per cent), (2) pigmentation (84 per cent), (3) diabetes mellitus (78 per